Tidal Waves
by ArcherOfTime
Summary: Dave keeps secrets quite well.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey, can I ask you a question…?" Those few words_ never _ mean anything good. Especially when said by the one and only Dave Strider. I mean, Dave is always just a chill dude. I've hardly ever seen him stressed or embarrassed, or worried…hell, the only other emotion besides his usual apathetic nature is his cocky, dominant side. So when my best bro interrupted our usual morning pesterchum conversation with this very question, well, it was more than a little terrifying.

"Actually…nevermind. Forget I said anything. What were we talking about again?"

He must have thought I was offended or something since I still haven't responded to his first question as of five minutes ago. I try to fix my mistake right away.

"Nonono! I'm sorry I really do want to know what you were going to ask I was just, uh, caught off guard I guess. I mean I noticed you weren't really your normal self today. At least you didn't seem to be, but I guess the question still surprised me." My fingers are vigorously tapping across the keyboard now. He really was acting different this afternoon and I wouldn't be a good friend if I wasn't at the very least concerned for him.

"It's seriously the stupidest thing just forget about it." Dave responds quickly replies and waits for my reply. I can practically see his neutral face staring at his computer screen and chewing slowly on his lip. He does that when he's really nervous, which is rarely ever. But I still couldn't seem to get much out of him for a while after this.

"Dave seriously just tell me."

"Why do you even want to know?"

"Because I'm curious"

"Curiosity killed the cat"

"And satisfaction brought it back ;D"

"John"

"Dave"

"Egderp"

"It's Egbert you fuckmuffin."

"Oooh, that's a new one. Let's talk about how you came up with that."

"Dave stop avoiding the subject."

"What subject"

"_**The**_ subject"

"I have no idea what subject you're talking about"

"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave."

"Yes John what is it"

"Uuughhh!"

"What is upsetting you John?"

"_You_ are. Just tell me the truth already."

"You can't handle the truth."

"Dave Elizabeth Strider I swear to fucking god."

"No dude I'm being serious like this might not be something your fragile and delicate self can handle. I wouldn't want to stain the pure innocence of your youthful mind with one of my petty, shitty problems."

"I can handle it. I swear I can. Please, Dave, I really want to know. This seems important to you and I don't want to let you down here. Please?"

Dave takes an extra-long time to decide on his answer. It had been over an hour and I had by then given up and logged off for dinner, when he finally replied.

"…Okay."


	2. Chapter 2

Dave unexpectedly showed up at my house later that night with a gallon of apple juice and the stuffed capybara that he pretends he doesn't sleep with every night. This was damn serious.

"So what was it that you wanted to talk about?" I lead him up the stairs to my bedroom and he follows close behind without muttering a word. The only response I receive is a vague grunt, and I think he mumbled something to himself after that. Dave plops himself onto my bed and lets out a tortured sigh. He's on his back with his arms out like an airplane, and his shades are crooked on his face. Finally he speaks.

"I'm not really sure what I'm here to talk to you about." He doesn't move from his spot, only moves his mouth and lifts his hand a bit to correct the shades on his face. "I've been wanting to tell you for a while now, but I just never knew how. Plus I was legit scared and I just…Ughh, I don't know."

"Dave Strider, scared?" I raise an eyebrow and then my lips crease into a teasing smile. I've never in my life heard Dave say he was scared of anything. I've never _seen_ him scared of something before. I was sure he had to be joking. "What could _possibly _get through your cool kid façade enough to actually scare you?"

Dave sits up slowly, bites his lips again and then removes his shades and looks me dead in the eyes so I know he's being serious about this one. "I was scared of losing you."

"Dave, we've been over this. I'm not a homosexual."

"No dude I'm serious." He slips his shades back on and glares at me through them. "You're my best bro since like kindergarten and I should have told you about this…_thing _years ago but I always just thought that if you knew what happened with me you wouldn't…" He trails off in his sentence and continues to chew his lips so I pick up where he left off.

"What, you thought I wouldn't want to be your friend anymore?" He takes in a sharp breath—just a small one that no one else would notice besides someone whose spent most of their life getting to know him. So I assume my guess was correct. "Dave that's so stupid!" Now _I'm _offended. I cross my arms and huff at him with my next sentence. "You know I would never just ditch you like that. I mean, we're best bros! You could probably go off and murder someone and I would still—wait, you didn't seriously murder someone did you?!"

Dave laughs under his breath, the first sense of his actual personality shining through that I've seen for at least a few weeks now. "Nah, there aint a reason for me to kill someone. Yet." He says sarcastically with a spoonful of his Texas accent creeping into his voice. Dave hardly ever lets me hear his accent, so this new predicament must mean he's focusing on something must more important here.

"Mind if I spend the night?"

That's not really what I was expecting to hear. I really don't know what I was expecting, actually. Maybe something dramatic? Or like a lifelong kept secret or something more worth-wild than just—

"I swear I'll get to the real reason I'm here tonight. I just…need to get comfortable first." Dave interrupts my thoughts then, like he can read minds or something. "Do you really think I would have brought Wrinkle if this was something I could just blurt out over a cup of tea?"

Wrinkle is his capybara, if you didn't know. He had a point here and I really did want to trust him but… something kept telling me that he was only going to keep avoiding the subject and I would never even know. Still, I gave him the night to convince himself.

Later that night we watched like six Nic Cage movies in a row and cleared out the cupboard of popcorn. We joked around and laughed and Dave smiled, or I guess, _smirked _a few times in between. By 3am we were drunk off our asses from applejuice and left to linger on the livingroom couch with only the dim lighting radiating off of the television to keep us company.

Dave said something to me that I didn't quite catch as my head was squished between the couch cushions and Wrinkle. He poked me a few times and I fake-snored for a solid five minutes just to joke around. He completely bought my act and let out an irritated sigh when he couldn't wake me up, even though I was never asleep to begin with. Then he did something unbelievable.

Dave leaned over to poke my head once more, making sure I really was asleep. When I didn't move from my position he took in a small breath and paused. It was silent for a while until I could feel his frail fingers brushing the bangs away from my ear. He opened his mouth and whispered to me what he had been wanting to say the entire night.

I almost screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

"What do you mean you were r—!" Dave slammed his hand over my mouth before I could finish. Guess he didn't want to wake the whole house up (the whole house being my dad) with the bad news I just received. I slapped his hand away and continued my rant in a slightly quieter voice, "What the hell Dave!"

"So much for you being asleep…" Dave sat back on his knees on the couch and crossed his arms over his chest. "Damn it, thought I was in the clear." Dave grunted. Even through his shades I could see the crimson of his eyes looking anywhere but into my own. "Is it too late to mention that I was kidding…?"

"Dave fucking Strider I swear to God if this is a joke I'm going to throw you so far into space that NASA will mistake your newly pruned pale-ass body as a malfunctioned satellite device made of flesh."

"Jeez Egbert calm your tits." Dave hastily looked around the room to make sure we hadn't waken up my dad, then he turned all eyes on me. "I aint joking, okay? Even if I was I thought the 'pranking master' would at least hand me a chuckle. But wow that sure backfired on my ass."

"Dave this isn't something to be joking about!" I'm not even sure how I feel about this anymore. I don't even know if he's telling the truth here, really. Once the cat was out of the bag I wasn't sure how to react. Dave was right…maybe this isn't something I can handle.

Dave shrugged. He fucking _shrugged _and got up from the couch to walk behind it. "It happened a long time ago. No big deal…. I just thought you should know. For more than one reason…" Dave tilted his head from side to side until each direction made a popping noise. I hate it when he does that.

"No big deal?!" I repeat, the anger in my voice rising again. "This is the biggest deal of mankind! Dave how come you never told me until now?!" My pitch continued to get higher. My voice cracked with each word and I could feel the tears stinging my eyes, though I wouldn't let them fall just yet. This didn't seem real. "I….I have questions."

"Shoot." Dave was acting like this situation was nothing, and that is what pissed me off more than anything else. This was no shrugging deal, this was a tragedy that I never knew happened to my best friend before. How could I not have known…


	4. Chapter 4

It's been a week since he told me.

I should have seen the signs

I **_grew up_** with him

I was always by his side always his friend always there for him

Alwaysalwaysalways

We told each other **_EVERYTHING_**

So why

not

this

?

These thoughts plagued my mind for what felt like a century of torture. I wasn't able to achieve even a wink of sleep for days and my apatite seemed vacant. The nights I did manage sleep were the nights stormed of nightmares and sweaty, tearful awakenings at three in the morning.

Tonight is the former, not the latter.

When did it happen?

Why was this done to him?

How old was he when it happened?

Who would have been so SICK as to do something like that-

To touch him like that to disgrace his respect and I

I DON'T UNDERSTAND

Who would touch him in that way

WHO FUCKING TOUCHED HIM

**I'll kill them**

And then it hits me.

It hits me like a stack of bricks or a field of meteors aimed on the verge of my house alone.

It must have been seven years ago… He always had this "cool-kid" thing going on, even from the day I first met him. He was never really a touchy-feely kind of guy. In fact, he hardly showed that he was even capable of any physical attention with another person aside from the occasional fist bump. Even so he never completely avoided a hug or a slug in the shoulder or a pat on the back. That is…until 4th grade.

It was subtle. So much so that if I hadn't spent my entire life getting to know the dude, I wouldn't have even noticed the small changes in his personality and the way he carried himself. And suddenly the slightest touch shook him to the ground. He showed up to school with bags under his eyes. He wore long sleeves more often. He started to lose his cocky façade, you could see it in his broken smirk how worthless he felt and the sadness in his crimson eyes increased by the week. And on the day that he flinched away so fast from my hand on his shoulder that he nearly fell out of his chair, I knew something was seriously wrong.

I should have confronted him about it. But I didn't. And look where we are now.

God, I'm such an idiot.


	5. Chapter 5

God, I'm such an idiot.

I can't believe I was so _stupid _and reckless, doing something like telling Egbert.

Great move, shithead. Now your best bro knows that your pale virgin ass isn't so clean after all. He probably thinks I wanted it. Thinks I _begged_ for the old guy to take me until I was bleeding out. Again and again and again and again and

GOD I FUCKED UP.

I just

I fucked up, okay?

I didn't want it. Hell at the age it started I wasn't even sure how sex went aside from what bro so generously taught me with his collection of rainbow fuck plushies. What is he going to hate me for more? Not telling him about my little secret all these years or…or the fact that I was so _weak_ that I let myself be pushed down _iwasforced_ and I barely resisted _iscreamedmythroatraw_ and I could have escaped any time but I didn't _hetiedmetothebedbecauseiwasstrugglingsomuch_ **and I was weak.**

I deserved it. That's what he told me time after countless time and I never believed him I tried so hard not to believe his cruel words but now

Maybe he was

Right?

Maybe I did deserve this… I'm such a useless coward, I didn't fight hard enough, I gave in too easily, I was weak and I should have died for it. If it wasn't for bro on that one night, maybe I would be dead.

And maybe I honestly wouldn't care.

Being dead sounds nice on the rare occasion, even I have to admit that. There's so much fucking shit in this world and it drives me insane. Time after time I would be forced into my bedroom with a locked door. When he came over I hid under my bed and prayed I fucking **_prayed_** but it was never enough. He would always find me, drag me out from under the safety of my underground fortress by the strands of my hair and push my face into the bed sheets when my screams became loud enough to alert the neighbors. He learned how to control me better every time it happened.

And now John knows. He knows. He fucking knows and it's all my fault I should have never opened my mouth. He probably thinks I'm lying. I'm faking it for attention, I'm doing it as a prank, or whatever.

Because after all, 'men can't be raped', right?

What a fucking deceitful hype that is.


End file.
